Ah. Well you could just quote the relevant bit as part of that reference text. Might be easier than arranging copies for various people. ;)

Something like "But owing to muddles over the colour and other points due to faulty reproductions and mis-statements, the later descriptions seem to have wandered considerably from the real facts..... which are that it is actually a Dainty Bess that was planted there by time travellers just to annoy the archaeologists."

Also found this: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4256886?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

The remaining pages aren't available unless logged in. I think I'll sign up for a free JSTOR account as it would be handy sometimes anyway (not just for roses).

You may be interested in this. I still haven't signed up for JSTOR, but found an open access paper online. Excuse the horrendously long url.

http://www.academia.edu/1524323/_A_Re-Examination_Of_the_Floral_Fresco_from_the_Unexplored_Mansion_at_Knossos_Annual_of_the_British_School_at_Athens_92_1-24_1997_

Anyway, the upshot of it is that the fresco being discussed dates from around the same time as the Blue Bird Fresco, give or take a decade or two. The interesting part is the inclusion of "hybrid" plants that were created by the artist, using real plants as inspiration. In other words, some plants painted in some Minoan frescoes may never have actually existed in real life at all. Some of the others are highly stylised. It's quite conceivable that this would also apply to the Blue Bird Fresco, in which case the type of rose represented could be anyone's guess.

Hmm, that's interesting. Long url's break HMF's CSS. There's a trick you can do with that to solve the problem. I could mention it to the admins if they're interested.